Winter's End - Prologue
by chibiMuffin999
Summary: Prologue to "Winter's End". Covers the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier from Bucky's POV. SPOILERS if you haven't seen the movie (duh). Not slash, but lots of brotherly love. (T for language. Super Soldiers swear a lot :D) "Winter's End" is here: /s/10267701/1/Winter-s-End
1. Chapter 1

_The Targets. Both of them_. It is the blonde man, Captain America, that he focuses on. This one must die first. And now here is, as if he was personally delivering himself to the slaughter. The car is crushed easily, the traitor quickly dealt with. The Targets are trapped. _Sometimes they make it so easy…_

_And then again, sometimes…._

Heavy machine-gun fire has done little to slow down the Target. He is proving surprisingly resilient. Even a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade, which launches him off of an overpass and through a bus, has failed to yield a kill. The Winter Soldier re-evaluates his strategy. With the majority of his team turning out to be little more than cannon fodder, this is almost beginning to feel like a challenge. Rifle in hand, relentless as ever, he marches to the hunt.

* * *

The red-haired woman is what lures the prey into the open again. He wounds her, uses her as bait. She has been more trouble than expected, but her death is coming. For now, she is useful. He takes aim. One way or the other, he will have a kill today. The Target takes the bait.

* * *

The Soldier privately revels in the familiar thrill of hand-to-hand combat. So few Targets can disarm him, he rarely gets a chance to actually close with his prey. This is what he is meant for. This is his purpose. He surprises himself by actually showing off; twirling and tossing the hunting knife in his hands with each strike. He is in his element, a whirl of deadly steel and honed skill. They spar, blow for blow.

The blonde man is good. Surprisingly good. No wonder they want him dead.

It is just a matter of time, though. The Target is unarmed and outmatched. He has to tire out eventually. The Winter Soldier does not tire. He is a force of nature. The outcome is inevitable.

He takes his victim by the throat, flinging him into a car and letting him skid gracelessly to the ground, before lunging for the killing blow. The man manages to roll clear. They close again.

Unexpectedly the blonde man finds an opening, and launches him - hard - over his shoulder. The Winter Soldier slams into the pavement, rolling with the fall and neatly regaining his feet. His face mask has been torn from him somewhere in the scuffle, but it doesn't matter. He doesn't need it. He's almost impressed, in spite of himself.

The Target stares at him, and for a moment he's puzzled. This is not the usual face of a terrified victim, realizing the end is near. This is not the face of the outmatched accepting their fate. He knows those faces very well. This is something... different. _What is he staring at?_

"...Bucky?" The blonde man's face is strange. It's filled with things he isn't sure he can name. _Hope. Surprise….. Grief?_

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

He doesn't like the way his own confusion seeps into his voice. The Target crumples a bit, and for a moment - just a moment- there's a flicker of a dim and distant ache in his chest in response. Then it is gone, and there is only rage, fueled by confusion. He redoubles the attack.

Reinforcements have arrived.


	2. Chapter 2

"That man on the bridge." The Winter Soldier ignores the order to report. He can't focus on anything else. _"Bucky?"_ keeps echoing through his head. "Who was he?"

No one will tell him. The Leader's answer is not enough. It does not satisfy him. The face of the blonde man haunts him, stirring up vague images and feelings that he can't identify. He examines them uncertainly.

_Fear. _

_He is falling. _

_Pain. _

_He hears a voice screaming - realizes it is his own. Another voice joins it._

_Someone is screaming that name._

"_**Bucky, no!"**_

_A trail of blood in clean white snow._

_He is waking up on a table, disoriented, with strange faces hovering over him. A forgettable little man with round glasses is smiling at him in horrible, predatory way. His severed arm has been replaced with something new… new and terrifying. Everything hurts. He has to get away from here, he has to escape… He struggles and then- then…_

Then he isn't sure. All that he can remember after that is the cold. Bitter and debilitating cold.

"I knew him…"

The Leader is talking to him, and he tries to listen, tries to focus… but the scene replays in his head over and over, like a broken video, and he just can't.

"But, I _knew_ him." The Soldier says again, insistent. This is important. He needs to understand what it means. He can't put the pieces together and it's driving him insane.

"Wipe him and start over."

Reluctantly he leans back into the machine and allows himself to be strapped in. Accepts the mouth-guard out of reflex. The process is automatic by now. The chair tips backwards and he feels his heart begin to race in anticipation of what he knows is coming. His chest is already heaving with unspent panic as the electrodes descend over his face. He manages not to shudder at the electronic sizzle of the machine warming up. He can't help flinching.

Then the agony surges through him and he screams and screams and screams as everything else falls away and only white hot pain and rage are left.


	3. Chapter 3

As expected, the Target has come to him. Now it ends. His Target is trapped on this heli-carrier with him, and there is only one place the man will go. The Soldier only needs to wait.

* * *

"A lot of people are gonna die, Buck." The Target pauses on the catwalk, unwilling to advance for the moment. The Soldier stares through the name. It means nothing. It is nothing. "I can't let that happen."

The strange expression comes over the blonde man's face again when he doesn't respond. "Please, don't make me do this."

The Soldier simply waits.

Whatever the Target was hoping for, the moment has passed. The battle begins.


	4. Chapter 4

His human arm is injured and he's dizzy and disoriented from having his windpipe all but crushed a few moments earlier. He staggers a bit as he gets to his feet. It doesn't matter. The mission is all that matters.

He shakily lines up his shot and fires. The Target stumbles. The Soldier's aim is off - his arm won't respond properly - but it's enough. The Target keeps running towards the memory bank, limping now. He fires again. Still wide, this time to the shoulder. The Target keeps moving. The limp has become a stagger.

Somewhere inside his reeling mind, a hazy image rises unbidden. A scrawny blonde kid picking himself up out of dented trash-cans. There is blood oozing out of a split lip.

"_I could do this all day."_ _The kid is hopelessly outmatched, but he braces for the next punch anyway, the one he knows is coming. Too dumb to run away._

He thrusts the image violently out of his head and adjusts for the shaking of his hand. Taking careful aim, he fires again. The Target collapses with a yelp of pain, and this time he's sure he's hit something vital. Still, the blonde man in the mask stubbornly drags himself up to the memory bank a few moments later, though he is steadily bleeding out, to the Soldier's well-trained eye. He rams home a computer board before crumpling to his knees, arms wrapped protectively around a wounded mid-section.

The Soldier is trying to decide if he is more impressed or disgusted by this absurd determination when the carrier is rocked by a sudden explosion, and he is hurled violently to the ground again. Before he can move to regain his feet, a support beam creaks, gives way, and falls, pinning him flat to the floor. He feels at least one rib crack, but refuses to let himself cry out. Flames begin to grow around him.

_Not how I'd have ever expected to die…_ A voice in his head remarks lightly, and though he can't be sure, it almost sounds like his own.


	5. Chapter 5

The Target stumbles gracelessly down from what is left of the catwalk, landing heavily beside him. That hard, determined expression is on his face again, and for reasons he can't quite wrap his head around, The Soldier feels incredibly uneasy… near terrified at the proximity. He struggles to get free. He can't face this man, not now. Something in him is screaming, but he doesn't know what, and he doesn't understand why, which only makes it worse.

He is getting nowhere. Hard as he fights, he can't gain a single inch. He is trapped. Wild-eyed, he struggles, straining, refusing to succumb.

The Target, despite bleeding from half a dozen wounds, inexplicably kneels down beside the beam and helps him to push, even as his face contorts with pain.

Between the two of them, the heavy steel shifts just enough, and the Soldier is able to crawl to freedom, damaged arm clutching damaged ribs reflexively as he slowly gets to his feet. He's wounded, confused, and more than a little unnerved. It is a dangerous combination.


	6. Chapter 6

"You know me." The blonde man stares him down, waiting for something to happen. Willing him to make some connection that just isn't there. He can't bear it.

"No I _don't!_" He hauls back and punches the man across the face, with everything his metal arm can give. _The arm that can bend steel_. He staggers, but feels a vicious satisfaction when the Target reels too. The satisfaction quickly begins to fade as the target refuses to shut up.

"You've known me your entire life." The man continues, undeterred. "Your name... is James Buchanan Barnes-"

"SHUT UP!" He punches again, desperate to make it stop.

He's reacting with sheer animal instinct now. Panic is clouding his mind. Orders are blurring with foggy memories and he doesn't quite know which is which anymore. The blonde man staggers up but doesn't try to defend. He won't fight back.

The carrier lurches and they both stumble. When he regains his footing, he finds that the Target's blue mask is abruptly gone. He is suddenly staring into that earnest kid's face again. Something inside him twists and he feels sick.

"I'm not going to fight you." The Target intentionally lets his shield drop away through a broken hole in the floor, and it vanishes into a sea of fire and smoke. The man meets his eyes, drawing himself up, squaring his shoulders and bracing for whatever comes next. _ Just like that kid behind the theater._ _"Sometimes I think you _like_ getting punched."_

"You're my friend."

Something in him breaks and he lunges, metal hand closing around the blonde man's throat as he hurls him to the floor.

"You're my mission!"

He pulls his arm back and strikes hard, again and again. The blonde man barely reacts. Just looks up at him with that calm resignation. It is maddening. He draws his fist back to end this, once and for all. He will snap the Target's neck and be done with it...but something stops him. He can't bring himself to connect.

"So finish it." the Target tells him.

He pulls back again. It's past time to complete the mission. But he just… can't. The arm hovers uncertainly.

_The mission… Focus on the-_

Something about the bleeding lip, the bruised and swollen eye… it reminds him of a skinny kid from Brooklyn who used to get beaten up on a weekly basis. He can't think.

His eyes dart desperately across the bloodied face. There has to be some clue there. Something to end the stalemate.

"Cause I'm with you to the end of the line…" The Target wheezes, as metal girders shift dangerously above them. The Soldier can't move, he just stares, frozen. He knows that phrase. Somehow knows it by heart. He is no longer sure if the tightness in his chest comes from his damaged ribs.

A sudden rain of debris crashes through the remains of the carrier around them. The Soldier finds a hand-hold and manages to leap clear, but the Target falls bonelessly away as the floor collapses. The limp form plummets with the wreckage.

He stares as the body falls. It feels as though it takes forever for it to hit the water, though he knows it can be only seconds.

That's it then. It's over…

But the words still hang in the air, even as the blonde man vanishes beneath the murky water. He doesn't know why, but he has to do _something_. Without thinking, he dives.


	7. Chapter 7

For a moment, he cannot find the body. Something in his mind panics, demands that he swim faster, deeper. He must find this man. He _must_. Though his chest and arm are already on fire, he obeys.

A faint white star below him. He swims for it, manages to snatch a heavy kevlar strap, and kicks up towards the air. With a gasp, he breaks the surface as fire rains down from above. He swims, as strongly as he can while injured and hauling the heavy man behind him. His training tells him to drop the extra weight and save himself. He ignores it.

His entire right side is burning and his steps are weary, but he drags the unresponsive body clear of the water before letting it go.


	8. Chapter 8

_Not dead._

The Target- _Steve?_ -is alive. For now. It is the best compromise the Winter Soldier can bring himself to make. He bends down and listens for a pulse. It is faint, but present.

He allows himself a moment to study the face of the man he has just inexplicably rescued. He still can't place it, but he will. He has to.

He finds the radio headset still clinging tenaciously to the collar of the man's uniform and though he knows he should leave the man to his fate, he presses the Emergency button instead. He knows they will track the signal.

He leaves his Target - _Steve_ - bleeding and semi-conscious, but alive in the sand. Visions of strange, but familiar faces tickle at the edges of his brain.

_Bucky. _

_Who the hell is Bucky?_

He staggers into the trees, mind buzzing with questions. His feet test the terrain automatically. He covers his tracks without realizing he's done it. His mind is busy; ticking furiously, trying to fill in gaps he has only just realized are there.

Something changed in this last confrontation. It makes his head swim. He doesn't know why he can't repress it. Something in that face, the name… it all ricochets around his skull until he wants to scream, just to let it all out. _To the end of the line._ It means nothing, but somehow it means everything.

All he knows for sure is that this person must not die. Everything else is just… chaos.

* * *

A chopper explodes into view over the trees behind him, gracefully pivoting and making straight for the heart of the city. He glances at it with a grimace. Automatically his training takes over. The way it flies: so careful, fast, and direct. They'll have found him, _Steve,_ on the sand. He must be alive. No one flies that fast for the dead.

He has a fighting chance, then…

The Soldier isn't entirely sure why he suddenly feels better knowing this. He also doesn't particularly care for the way that hopeful, blue-eyed face is staring at him from inside his own head. There is something in those eyes that tears into him. It hurts and he doesn't know why.


End file.
